Film Editing

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Transcript of Film Editing

Film Editing - CuttingGraphic matchTwo successive shots joined so as to create a strong similarity of compositional elements (e.g., color, shape). Used in trasparent continuity styles to smooth the transition between two shots, as in this clip from Women On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown (Mujeres al Borde de un Ataque de Nervios, Almodóvar, 1988).Match on action / Action MatchA cut which splices two different views of the same action together at the same moment in the movement, making it seem to continue uninterrupted. Quite logically, these characteristics make it one of the most common transitions in the continuity style.Eyeline matchA cut obeying the axis of action principle, in which the first shot shows a person off in one direction and the second shows a nearby space containing what he or she sees. If the person looks left, the following shot should imply that the looker is offscreen right. The following shots from Dario Argento's The Stendhal Syndrome (La Sindrome di Stendhal, Italy, 1996), depict Anna looking at a painting, Brueghel's The Fall of Icarus. The scene takes place inside Firenze's most famous museum, the Uffizi Gallery.Shot / Reverse ShotTwo or more shots edited together that alternate characters, typically in a conversation situation. In continuity editing, characters in one framing usually look left, in the other framing, right. Over-the-shoulder framings are common in shot/reverse-shot editing. Film editingFilm editing is part of the creative post-production process of filmmaking. The term film editing is derived from the traditional process of working with film, but now it increasingly involves the use of digital technology.The film editor works with the raw footage, selecting shots and combining them into sequences to create a finished motion picture. Jump cutAn elliptical cut that appears to be an interruption of a single shot. Either the figures seem to change instantly against a constant background, or the background changes instantly while the figures remain constant. See also elliptical editing, steadicam. Jump cuts are anathema to Classical Hollywood continuity editing, but feature prominently in avant-garde and radical filmmaking.When the French Nouvelle Vague films of the 1960s made jump cuts an essential part of their playful, modern outlook, many directors from around the globe started to use jump cuts --either creatively or in a last ditch attempt to become "hip".

More recently, jump cuts are more commonly associated with music videos, video or alternative filmmaking, like Lars Von Trier's Dogma films. Here is an example from Dancer in the Dark (Denmark, 2000).Stendhal syndrome, Stendhal's syndrome, hyperkulturemia, or Florence syndrome is a psychosomatic disorder that causes rapid heartbeat, dizziness, fainting, confusion and even hallucinations when an individual is exposed to art, usually when the art is particularly beautiful or a large amount of art is in a single place or e.g. when confronted with immense beauty in the natural world.First we see her looking... then we see what she looks at.CrosscuttingCross cutting and parallel editing are the same thing. These are when alternate shots of two or more lines of action occurring in different places, usually simultaneously. These are used to quickly change from one scene to another without the viewer barely noticing.Parallel editingLet's say you have a scene where a villain is chasing the hero of the film. To spend the entire chase scene trying to keep both the hero and the villain in the frame at the same time will become very difficult and un-engaging after a while. A better way to approach this problem is through the use of parallel cutting. In this example, the scene would consist of several shots of the hero running in one direction, and some shots of the villain running in the same direction. Perhaps the hero looks back, out of frame, at his pursuer. At this point, the editor would insert a shot of the villain. Neither character occupies the same screen space, yet the audience still understands that one is chasing the other. This technique is parodied in the film "Naked Gun 2½" where the editing swaps between showing the hero and the villain firing at each other, then finally in a long shot we realize they are in fact only about four feet away from each other.CutawayIn film and video, a cutaway shot is the interruption of a continuously filmed action by inserting a view of something else. It is usually, although not always, followed by a cut back to the first shot, when the cutaway avoids a jump cut.InsertThe Insert Shot - Used for showing intensity and detail also surprisingly used a lot in the film industry to hide mistakes.A very close shot of some detail in a scene. It is similar to a cutaway shot, but instead of distancing away from the scene, one moves in.Other cutsStar Wars: Return of the Jedi belongs to Lucasfilm Ltd. and 20th Century FoxTron: Legacy and Ed Wood belong to DisneyInside Man belongs to Universal PicturesStar Trek belongs to Paramount PicturesHook belongs to Sony PicturesTropic Thunder belongs to Dreamworks PicturesApocalypse Now belongs to LionsgateSherlock Holmes, Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, Inception, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and The Dark Knight belong to Warner Bros.As her interest grows, the eyeline match (that is the connection between looker and looked) is stressed with matching close-ups of Anna's face and Icarus's falling into the ocean in the painting.Again, this implies that Anna is looking directly at Icarus's body.Ironically, even if Argento managed to film inside the real Uffizi gallery, the painting he wanted to use, The Fall of Icarus, is not part of the museum's collection! The painting that we see is probably a reproduction, shot in the studio, and edited together with Anna's shots in the Uffizi to make us believe that they are both in the same room. As this example demonstrates, eyeline matches can be a very persuasive tool to construct space in a film, real or imagined.Graphic matches can also be used to make metaphorical associations, as in Soviet Montage style. Furthermore, some directors like Ozu Yasujiro use graphic matches as an integral part of their film style.Editing StylesA match on action adds variety and dinamism to a scene, since it conveys two movements: the one that actually takes place on screen, and an implied one by the viewer, since her/his position is shifted.Jump cuts are used expressively, to suggest the ruminations or ambivalences of a character, or of his/her everyday life, but they are also a clear signifier of rupture with mainstream film storytelling. Rather than presenting a film as a perfectly self-contained story that seamlessly unfold in front of us, jump cuts are like utterances that evidentiates both the artificiality and the difficulties of telling such a story.The function of editing is that of: Joining shots, Continuity and order, Manipulation of time and spaceContinuity editing- In this scene, the viewer should not be able to see a noticeable change between the cuts. The shots should flow together naturally. This means that the sequence of shots should appear to be continuous.Montage editing- DEF: A Montage is a technique in film where a number of short clips are put into a sequence to condense space time and information. It was originally introduced to cinema primarily by Eisenstein and early soviet directors used it as a synonym for creative editing (montage in the 1020s Soviet Union). In France the word montage simply means cutting so making something smaller but still putting enough information in to know what’s going on. The word montage came to identify, specifically the rapid, shock cutting that Eisenstein employed in his films. Soviet montage: the highly political soviet style of the 1920’s which sought to create a new meaning out of seemingly unconnected shots. The shot is used to make the audience aware that there is a noticeable change between the two cuts. The 180 degree rule